I’d follow Chris Pratt to the gates of Hell. In fact, I have. Anyone tried to sit through Passengers recently?

Anyway, the important thing is that this looks like a fun and cute movie, sure to be full of laughs for both the kids and the adults. This looks more like that Lego movie about Batman than the Lego movie about all the ninjas. I’m looking forward to it.

(Actually the LEGO movie with all the ninjas had a cute cat in it so it wasn’t all bad.)

Yesterday, when I heard that there was a trailer for a film called Bumblebee, I was really excited because I assumed it would be a Pixar film about a bee who speaks with the voice of Martin Freeman and who wonders why he was given the ability to sting if he can only use it once before dying.

Then I watched the trailer and I discovered that it was just another Transformers movie.

Actually, to be specific, this is a Transformers spin-off. In fact, it’s a prequel! It’s set in the 80s, which means that there will be a lot of retro fun to be had! So, this might be better than the average Transformers film. Or it might really suck, again like an average Transformers film.

Regardless, I bet it will have a killer soundtrack.

(Also, there is a reason for cautious optimism. Michael Bay is not directing. Instead, the director is Travis Knight, who previously gave us the brilliant Kubo and The Two Strings.)

Today is the 74th anniversary of D-Day, a day in which thousands sacrificed themselves so that the world could live free of Hitler’s tyranny.

Now, back in 1944, they didn’t have the nightly news. They didn’t have CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. There was no 24-hour news channels. And certainly, there was no internet. No one live tweeted the invasion of Normandy. No one blogged about it. No one marked themselves safe on Facebook. Instead, for many of the citizens back home, their first knowledge of D-Day came from the newsreels that often ran before movies.

The newsreel below is from June 9th, 1944, three days after the invasion. Take a look: